Most of you heard about the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), whether or not you realize it. If you are post-menopausal and stopped using your estrogen patches because of the increased risk of breast cancer, this is the group of women that provided the data. More than one study was done in the WHI. Besides the postmenopausal hormone trial, there was the calcium plus Vitamin D trial, and most importantly, there was the low-fat diet trial.

This particular slice of WHI followed 48, 000 women over the age of 50 from 1993 to 2005. Half were asked to follow a low-fat diet, and the other half were asked to follow their usual diet. So, how did the low-fat diet women fare over the long-haul? Read more…

Benefit of Low-Fat Over Low-Carbohydrate Diet on Endothelial Health in Obesity*

Low-carbohydrate diets (Atkins) work. People lose weight. Blood pressure improves. Cholesterol levels, especially triglycerides, come down. Sounds great, but is there any other information to the contrary? Read more…

How many medications are you on? Do any of those medications make you gain weight? If not outright weight gain, do any of those medications make it difficult to lose weight? You might be surprised at the following list Read more…

Yerbe maté is used in South America to make tea and soft drinks. Some believe it helps with weight loss. Is there any data? Read more…

Calories are  calories, but is high fructose  corn syrup (HFCS) any worse for us than other kinds of sweets? There is the camp that believes calories are calories and it doesn’t make a difference whether the calories are from regular table sugar or HFCS. Then, there is the opposing camp that believes HFCS is of horse of a different color. But are there any data from scientific studies? In a study done in mice, researchers showed that mice given a soft drink sweetened with HFCS gained far more weight than mice given a soft drink sweetened with table sugar. Read more…